Red House Painters

August 29 - September 5, 1 9 9 6 [Off the Record]

*** Red House Painters

SONGS FOR A BLUE GUITAR

(Supreme/Island)
Singer/songwriter Mark Kozelek, whose poetic words and plaintive music have steered San Francisco's Red House Painters through four moody releases on 4AD, is the willing victim of a somber, obsessive muse. He never merely suffers from loneliness, depression, or dejection; he explores their depths with grim determination.
Song for a Blue Guitar began as a Kozelek solo project, so there are spare, introspective moments with just his lone voice and guitar. But at 70-plus minutes long, it also grew into one of the Painters' more straightforward rock albums. The band join Kozelek on several silly little covers, including Paul McCartney's "Silly Love Songs," which opens with pounding drums and a long, gritty guitar solo that sounds like Neil Young's intro to "Cortez the Killer." (Ric Ocasek's "All Mixed Up" and Yes's "Long Distance Runaround" are the other two covers.) Songs for a Blue Guitar may be most lighthearted disc the Red House Painters have ever made, but Kozelek's idea of a good time is deflating "Silly Love Songs" and turning the line "Some people want to fill the world with silly love songs/And what's wrong with that?" into an admission of defeat rather than a statement of purpose.
-- Matt Ashare
(Red House Painters perform at the Lansdowne Street Playhouse this Tuesday, September 3.)